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Bird in Brief
When Two Boys Made the Midwest Proud
We Knew Him When...
The Making of a Legend
In November 2013, Indiana State University and the surrounding community watched as Larry Bird helped to unveil a 17-foot statue of his likeness outside Hulman Center and participated in a dinner and program to raise funds for a scholarship that will bear his name. The notoriously attention-shy Bird agreed to the creation of the statue and the scholarship, he said, because the inspiration for the projects came from students (see p. 3). Throughout the weekend, the Indiana State University Foundation raised more than $400,000 for the Larry Bird Scholarship, which will support future basketball stars from Indiana. But the weekend was about more than playing ball. In helping to put Indiana State on the basketball map, Bird gave hope to other students who wanted to come to this school, work hard, and pursue their dreams—whatever those dreams might be. In honor of Bird and his many fans around the world, we created a magazine dedicated to his story.
Welcome to the Larry Bird tribute issue.
For more on the tribute weekend, visit www.indstate.edu/larrybird Share your Bird memories at: Indiana State University Office of Communications & Marketing Terre Haute, IN 47809 isu-magazine@mail.indstate.edu 812.237.3773
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small town, big dreams
The students behind the Larry Legend Foundation by Mallory Manning ’13
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tony campbell; opposite: ISU ARCHIVES
“I had a closer connection to the students living on campus,” s a young boy shooting hoops in his driveway, Brad Fenton used to imagine himself as Indiana Hurst said. “[Brad] had a full-time job and lived off-campus, so I tried to serve as that liaison and be that contact for him.” State’s No. 33. Not all students, however, caught the Bird fever. Hurst recalled “I wasn’t Jordan. I wasn’t Magic. I was Larry,” encountering indifference to the project among some in the student he said. As a 21-year-old sophomore at ISU in 2006, Fenton wondered body, but only because they couldn’t see the “bigger picture” of the why the other two basketball icons had honorary statues built on statue being built a few years down the road. That bigger picture became clear on Nov. 9, 2013, as Bird and their college campuses, but Indiana State didn’t feature any of Wolfe unveiled the 1,900-pound bronze statue, suitably titled Bird—and he resolved to change that. Fenton is no stranger to the Bird hype that took Terre Haute by “Larry Legend.” “He’s changed the game of basketball,” Hurst said. “For an indistorm in the 1970s, as his mother attended Indiana State during that era. Fenton grew up in Terre Haute watching basketball games at vidual to come out of a small town and to work as hard as he did, Hulman Center and relishing his parent’s recollections of the 1979 that’s why people look up to him. That’s what I think makes him an important figure.” season that took ISU to the NCAA championship game. The weekend of “Honoring a Legend” at ISU provided closure With the goal to bring a statue of Bird to Terre Haute, Fenton talked with local artist Bill Wolfe, who has constructed numer- for Hurst, as this piece of his Indiana State experience lingered ous pieces of artwork for the campus and city of Terre Haute in beyond graduation day back in May. “I wanted to leave a footprint on the campus somehow, and I recent years. The two met at a Greek-life event and immediately was able to be a part of that by seeing the statue go up,” Hurst said. bonded over their mutual admiration of Bird. “I had an idea, and people said it was a good idea, but Bill was “Now I feel like I completed that Indiana State chapter of my life.” Undoubtedly, the celebration conjured up a variety of emotions the first person that really believed in that idea,” Fenton said. Over the next few years, Fenton found six friends to take his for Fenton, who was thrilled to see the once-lofty idea come to dream on as their own. Matt Foster, Ryan Royer, Nick Ferrell, fruition. Mostly, he experienced pride in his hometown. “I will love the fact that I can come back years from now with Luke Jones, and Zack Hurst all graduated from ISU, while Geoff Haynes graduated from Indiana University but connected to the project through his Terre Haute roots. All came on board to help Fenton spearhead the effort. Young college students with a lofty goal, the group set out in 2008 to establish the Larry Legend Foundation, a registered student organization charged with raising money for a statue of Bird. After opening an account at the Indiana State University Foundation, they began accepting donations and spreading the word. Fenton also wanted Bird’s seal of approval on the statue before moving forward. Fenton promised himself that he would only continue his efforts if Bird endorsed the project. “The last thing I wanted was to start this student orga4Larry Legend Foundation with nization, start getting all this attention and try to raise Bird (l to r): Luke Jones, Matt Foster, Ryan Royer, Brad Fenton, Zach money for it, and have Larry say, ‘I don’t want any of Hurst, Nick Farrell, Geoff Haynes this,’” Fenton said. “I think the reason we did get his blessing was because it was student-driven.” ISU alumnus Zack Hurst joined Bird’s team of students in fall my kids or grandchildren and say, ‘I helped make this happen.’” Fenton thinks the sculpture is a timestamp—a keepsake of a 2009. Hurst, who graduated in May 2013 with a degree in recreation and sport management, met with Fenton as a freshman and memorable era of ISU basketball: “Long term, it represents a time developed promotional materials for the Larry Legend Founda- at Indiana State when we were on top of the world, 33-0. But we tion, including brochures and T-shirts to be distributed at basket- won’t talk about that last game against Magic,” Fenton said with a laugh. ball games.
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Humble Beginnings
Bird’s high school coaches hoped he would grow tall and play as well as his older brother Mark, but they had no idea they were prepping one of the greatest basketball players of all time.
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by Maureen Harmon
4 Coming of age: a gangly Bird in his Springs Valley High days
to the NCAA Championship; before he was Larry Bird of “Magic v. Bird” or the “Hick from French Lick” or “Larry Legend” or a member of the Boston Celtics who would steal that inbound pass to seal game five of the 1987 Pistons-Celtics finals; before those hundreds of 3-pointers, he was a basketball player for Springs Valley, and his career there got off to a rocky start. In his very first game as a JV player, he broke his ankle. Bird would be out for most of the year, but he headed to the gym anyway, says Jones, often shooting from crutches. He returned that February with a stiff ankle and played with the Blackhawks in the State Sectionals. They won the
indiana basketball hall of fame
hen Larry Bird hit the basketball courts at Springs Valley High School back in 1970, the coaches hoped he would develop a good shot like his older brother, Mark. They also hoped he would grow. They liked him—his work ethic was insane for a teenager, showing up to school early most mornings to shoot free throws, and his competitive side was fierce. Jim Jones, who coached Bird through his junior year of high school, remembers the now-icon as a little boy in the elementary school basketball program who cried when he lost. “His brother had been a good player for us, so we assumed he would be a good player for us also. He was rather tall at that age, and we noticed that, and so we were hoping he’d get as big as Mark, and Mark, I think, was about 6'3".” But the coaches had no idea that they would watch this kid become the high school’s all-time leading scorer. That his skills would begin to pack the high school gym. That that little boy, who cried when he lost, would become one of the greatest trash talkers in the NBA. But before Bird was the Larry Bird, who would take Indiana State
Bird: The timeline December 7, 1956
July 27, 1962
Larry Joe Bird is born in West Baden, Ind., a small neighboring town to French Lick.
Bird makes his French Lick hoops debut—at Springs Valley Elementary School.
1971
1972
Bird puts on the number 33 for the first time.
Bird spends most of his sophomore year on the bench due to a broken ankle. Even so, he practices shooting from crutches and makes the varsity team as a junior in 1972.
Spring 1973
Summer 1973
That famous Bird pass began its quest for perfection at Springs Valley High School, where he earned a personal high school record of 136 assists.
At the end of his junior year, Larry is “small” at 6'3". Some college scouts decide Bird is not their guy. Entering into his senior year, he sprouts to 6'7". The scouts change their minds.
Spring 1974 Springs Valley High School gym, which holds 2,700 people, is packed with 5,000 for one of Bird’s senior year performances. When Bird’s coaches, Jim Jones and Gary Holland, grant him freedom on the court, he scores 55 points—his highest points-pergame record.
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first game, lost the second, and that was the relatively unexciting start to Bird’s high school career. As the years went on, the ankle improved, his shot got better, and the height came in giant waves. When Bird was a sophomore, Jones estimates, he weighed in at about 135 pounds, and stood 6'1". By his junior year, he had put on 20 pounds and two inches. When he was ready to —Jim Jones in USA start his senior year, Jones, Today upon the coach’s who had then become the retirement. Jones school’s athletic director, coached Bird through his was staring up at a 6'7" junior year of high school player (on his way to 6'9"), at Springs Valley. with floppy blond hair and an ability to predict and adjust to other players’ moves on the court in ways Jones had never seen. “He has always had such a tremendous understanding of the game,” says Jones. He wasn’t quick. He wasn’t a jumper, but it didn’t seem to matter. “He could fit in because of his understanding and his anticipation. It seemed he had the game on another level, like a chess game—he could see what was going to happen … We talk about it a lot. He can’t explain it.” That year they won sectionals, but lost regionals. Even so, Bird had an incredible senior year, averaging 20.6 rebounds and 30.6 points per game, ending his career as the school’s all-time leading scorer—a record that still stands. He played with the Indiana AllStars, and Indiana University, Bob Knight, and those famous Hoosiers took notice.
He was about the skinniest, frail, 6'1", 135-pound sophomore you’ve ever seen, but he had a tremendous feel for the game.
Later, Spring 1974 Bird leads the Blackhawks to a sectional victory but falls short to the Bedford Stone Cutters in the regional final. Bird finishes his high school career with 1,125 points, becoming Spring Valley’s alltime leading scorer.
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But there must have been a lot going on in the mind of the young Larry Bird. He was growing up poor in French Lick, Indiana. His parents had divorced. His dad would later kill himself. Basketball, says Jones, was an outlet. And Jones helped facilitate that. “There wasn’t a lot to do in that small town,” says Jones. If the coach’s car was at the high school, that meant Jones was likely doing laundry. And the kids came in to play. “We’d talk basketball,” he says, “and they’d shoot around.” Jones was more than a coach to Bird. He admits that he became Bird’s guidance counselor and taxi driver, working with him through his college recruitment, entertaining the recruiters at his home, and eventually helping Bird decide to attend Indiana University in Bloomington with Bob Knight, and later—after he made the choice to walk away from the prestigious program— to ISU. Finally settled at ISU, Bird quickly eased his coaches’ and mentors’ fears about whether his skills would carry him smoothly to the college court. “When he got into college, we had that same question: Is he quick enough to play on the next level?” says Jones. “Each time he silenced that right away.” He silenced it all the way to the pros, three championship rings, and a gold medal. Jones still hangs out with Bird, whom he first met as an elementary student named “Mark’s Little Brother” and watched grow into an NBA All-Star and coach for the Pacers. Jones still heads out on fishing and golfing trips with Bird. Although he doesn’t cry when he loses, Bird—always the competitor—will challenge his former coach on the green or in the boat. Sometimes we look at Bird and think of the 1979 NCAA game. We think of the Magic rivalry and the three-point contests and the image of Bird and Dr. J with their hands around each other’s necks, and we forget where it all started. With a high school that now sits on Larry Bird Boulevard, and with a coach who taught a young skinny kid the basics—passing, dribbling, shooting—and, eventually, helped him master the game. “He’d find a weakness in his game, and then we would just perfect it,” says Jones. “But the great ones do that.”
September 1974
Spring 1975
Fall 1975
1977
Bird arrives at Indiana University on a basketball scholarship. After a few weeks on a campus with ten times as many students as there were people in French Lick, he returns home to work and attend Northwood Institute, a community college.
Bird’s mother slams the door in ISU coach Bill Hodges’ face when he appears at Bird’s home on a recruiting trip. Hodges drives around French Lick and finds Bird and his grandmother leaving a laundromat. Grandma convinces Bird to sit down with the coaches over tea, since they came all the way from Terre Haute.
Bird, who sprouted another two inches (reaching 6'9"), starts at ISU.
Bird and his American teammates beat Russia to win gold in the World University Games in Bulgaria.
November 28, 1977 Bird and two Indiana State cheer team members, Marcia Staub Murphy and Sharon Senefeld Ilkins, appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated. This would be the first of many covers.
man of honor For two days in November 2013, thousands of alumni and Terre Haute community members gathered on campus to pay tribute to Larry’s legacy at the Honoring a Legend event. Here’s how the weekend added up. —Dave Taylor
400,000 Dollars raised for the Larry Bird Scholarship
Vintage Style?
5,000 Attendees at the dedication of the Larry Bird statue
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Number of students who started the Larry Legend Foundation
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3,700
by the numbers
Limited edition Larry Bird bobbleheads ordered for events
NOv. 8 & 9, 2013
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1,900 Weight of statue (in pounds)
Number of seasons between the Sycamores’ NCAA championship game against Michigan State and the dedication of the Larry Bird statue
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June 9, 1978
Bird is named a consensus All-American— his first of two such honors.
As a junior at Indiana State, Bird is passed over by five teams— including the Pacers— in the NBA draft, going sixth to the Boston Celtics. He opts to return to ISU to finish his senior year before going pro.
March 26, 1979 Bird leads the team to its first appearance in the NCAA tournament, taking them to the championship against Michigan State University, where they lose 75-64.
Spring 1979
April 1979
1984
Indiana State goes 33-1 in Bird’s senior year, finishing with 29 school records, including the top spot on Indiana State’s all-time scoring list. Bird graduates in May with a degree in education.
Bird officially signs a fiveyear, $3.2 million contract with the Celtics, making him the highest paid rookie in professional team sports at the time.
After winning the 1984 NBA Finals against the Lakers, Bird admits he “won this one for Terre Haute” to make up for his Indiana State loss to Michigan State five years earlier.
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lane stewart/getty images
Approximate height, in feet, of the statue (exact height of the statue is: 17', 1 and 1/8" tall)
Larry Bird has graced the cover of Sports Illustrated 16 times, but the first showed up the week of Nov. 28, 1977. In between ads for the Schwinn Deluxe Exerciser, a stationary bike (with built-in speedometer!), and a “telephone cable fiber as thin as a human hair” from GTE, sits a story that examines the history of the jump shot and its effect on the game. In the piece, writer Kent Hannon profiles then-current players like the “low-profile, but high-flying Bird” (shown above with former ISU cheer team members, from left, Sharon Senefeld Ilkin and Marcia Staub Murphy). Hannon takes on Bird’s first season, in which ISU went 25-3, and mentions Bird’s first shot of that season—a slam dunk. The shot, he says, “alerted long-suffering Indiana State fans that a new era was dawning.” —Maureen Harmon
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Shoot Like Bird By today’s standards, Bird’s jump shot looks like something out of Naismith’s first handbook—that 45-degree elbow bend, that release point located almost behind his head. No one, though, can argue with the results. And while you’re not likely to take the Sycamores to the Final Four, you could at least earn a little more respect in your neighborhood pickup games. Here, ISU men’s basketball coach Greg Lansing offers pointers to get Bird-like results in your backyard. (Note: Actual results may vary.) —Dan Morrell
The thing about Larry is he had such a tremendous work ethic. He practiced hard or played hard every day. He didn’t say a lot.... but when he got on the floor, he was the leader. Everybody followed his lead.
LINE IT UP Get things in order before you heave the rock. “Toes to target, elbow above your knee, hand above your elbow—all in a straight line,” [Fig. 1] says Lansing. You know you’re doing it right, he notes, if your elbow ends above your eyebrow. FOLLOW THROUGH Lansing says the wrist flick on the release can be overemphasized. The follow-through should be both “up and out.” And at the point of release, the ball should be on the tips of the index and middle fingers—not the palms [Fig. 2]. Shooting is ultimately a “feel” thing, Lansing notes, “and no one had a better feel than Bird.”
—Bill Hodges in “Former Indiana State coach Bill Hodges fondly remembers Sycamores’ run to 1979 NCAA title game” (Syracuse.com). Hodges coached the Sycamores from 1978 to 1982.
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[Fig. 1]
[Fig. 2]
[Fig. 3]
REPEAT Growing up, Bird shot 500 free throws every day before school. But before setting aside three hours of your morning for jumpers, make sure your form is strong. One drill Lansing uses includes stationing players right underneath the basket for dozens of one-handed flips to help them find a repeatable motion [Fig. 3] . For you, it might be a useful crossroads: If you can’t make it from one foot away, maybe golf’s a better option.
1986
Oct. 31, 1989
July 1992
Magic Johnson visits Bird’s home in French Lick to shoot a Converse commercial. The shoot is followed by lunch served by “Mom Bird.”
Bird marries long-time girlfriend, Dinah Mattingly, a 1979 graduate from the College of Business and a member of Alpha Omicron Pi.
The first American Olympic basketball team, consisting of Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and others, is sent to Barcelona. “The Dream Team,” as they became known, brings home the gold.
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Aug. 18, 1992
Feb. 4, 1993
Just 10 days after the Olympics, Bird announces that he’ll retire from the Celtics. His career consisted of 21,791 points and 1,556 steals.
The Boston Celtics retire Bird’s number 33 jersey.
1996
1997
Retirement leaves time for acting: Bird appears in Space Jam with Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Bill Murray, Bugs Bunny, and Tweety Bird.
Donnie Walsh takes a leap of faith and names Bird head coach of the Indiana Pacers, even though Bird has no previous coaching experience.
3 When Kobe Bryant claimed the 2012 U.S. men’s basketball team could beat the Dream Team, Bird responded on the Pacer’s Twitter feed with his classic understated humor: “They probably could. I haven’t played in 20 years and we’re all old now.”
illustrations: steve kale; dream team: neil leifer/getty images
The Final Act Larry Bird’s 8.4 points per game during the 1992 Summer Olympics may look slight given the gaudy numbers put up by the U.S. men’s “Dream Team”—their average margin of victory was more than 51 points—but it’s important to read that number in context. Bird’s back hadn’t been the same since he first tweaked it shoveling gravel in his yard in 1985. Seven years later, retirement looming, he was literally having trouble just walking some mornings. But Magic Johnson, professional foeturned-friend, famously goaded Bird into joining the team, refusing to even appear on a Sports Illustrated cover announcing the Dream Team without Bird in the shot. In Barcelona, there were still highlights for the 35-year-old Bird—a team-high 19 points in a win over Germany, and an array of no-look passes that bewildered opponents.
The whole experience had a deep personal significance to Bird, who would later tell reporter Jack McCallum, author of the book Dream Team, about how his father was an avid Olympics-watcher, always announcing to his kids that the U.S. had won gold when he heard the national anthem start to play. “So when we stood on that platform in Barcelona to get our gold medals, that was the most exciting thing for me,” Bird told McCallum. “I was thinking back to my dad and remembering that when he heard that anthem he was happy. And I was happy, too.” It also made for one hell of a swan song: 10 days after Bird and the rest of the Dream Team received their medals in Barcelona, he called a press conference in Boston and announced that his playing days were over. —Dan Morrell
1997
2000
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2003
Bird takes the Pacers to a 58-24 season and is named NBA Coach of the Year. He’s the only guy in NBA history to have won both the MVP and Coach of the Year titles.
Bird leads the Pacers to their only NBA finals appearance to date as head coach.
Having promised to only coach for three years, Bird takes a break from basketball, and steps down as Pacer’s head coach.
Bird is back and heads to the Pacers front office as president.
Feb. 20, 2007
May 16, 2012
Bird’s number 33 is retired at ISU’s Hulman Center.
Bird receives the NBA Executive of the Year award, making him the first person to become Rookie of the year, MVP, Coach of the Year, and Executive of the Year.
Our oldest son Chris, who was probably 9 or 10 at the time, would go out and shoot before games and be an honorary ball boy at the Garden. Larry would get in a little shooting contest with him.... Chris was competitive, but Larry wasn’t going to lose. —Chris Ford in “Coaching Larry Legend” (NBA.com). Ford served as head coach of the Celtics from 1990 to 1995.
2012
Nov. 9, 2013
Bird contributes to the Dream Team documentary.
A 1,900-pound, larger-than-life, bronze statue of Larry Bird is dedicated outside of Hulman Center at Indiana State and a scholarship is formed in Bird’s honor.
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put in a DVD the other day and watched that 1979 NCAA championship game—Michigan State vs. Indiana State, Magic Johnson vs. Larry Bird, still one of the most-watched games ever, college or pro. I knew how it would turn out. Michigan State, stronger and deeper than the Sycamores, would go ahead early, then hold off a secondhalf challenge to win by 11. But at the opening jump, I could still feel the charge so many people felt that day. There they were, those two sublime athletes, long-haired boys again on the screen, slender in the old short trunks, yet commanding. They were why so many watched.
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jerome Mcclendon/associated press
3Magic and Bird at a Salt Lake City press conference just prior to meeting on the court in the ’79 NCAA Finals
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They were still beautiful. But as a Midwesterner, I turned off the set feeling a little sad. Somehow the meeting of those two boys struck me as the high point of a certain stretch of time that we took for granted until we realized—just now, really—that it was over. In the Midwest, history happened in tiny increments, each one a family’s decision to pack and try for a new life. It happened in two broad waves. The first started when Revolutionary War veterans crossed the Appalachians to plant farms that made the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The second began around World War I, when black sharecroppers left the South for city jobs in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Gary, and Milwaukee. By World War II, the journalist John Gunther wrote, the upper Midwest had become the region “where industry and agriculture both reach their highest American development and coalesce.” In the decades after the war, the Midwest was two realms, two ways of life—farm and factory, small town and city, white and black. But in both, lots of kids grew up crazy about basketball. In 1957, French Lick and West Baden, Ind.—adjacent hamlets built around ancient mineral springs—merged their schools into one district. There weren’t more than a couple thousand people in the two towns together, but that first year, the new Springs Valley High School went all the way to the state finals. On Friday nights everybody went to the game, rooted against Loogotee or Jasper, then buttonholed the players on the street the next day. They built
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courts for the kids to play on in summer. They hired a good coach, Jim Jones, who hung around late so the boys could keep shooting after practice. The best of these was a gawky blond kid born in 1956, the third of six children, Larry Bird. His dad worked mostly at Kimball Piano and Organ, later on road crews. His mom waitressed, sometimes 80 hours in a week. He shagged rebounds by the hour for his big brother, Mark. By his sophomore year at Springs Valley High, Larry was shooting 500 free throws every morning before school. Coach Jones taught the fundamentals—the reverse pivot, how to box out, how to use the left hand. If Larry stopped practicing, he thought of a kid somewhere else practicing more. “I was brought up to work real hard every day,” he wrote later. He made All-State and led Springs Valley to the regional finals. He started at Indiana University in Bloomington, dropped out and started over at Indiana State in Terre Haute. In Lansing, Mich., the powerhouse school was Sexton High, a mile north of the yellow frame house at 814 Middle Street, home of Earvin Johnson, Jr., born in 1959, the fourth of seven. Lansing was a small state capital town that got big after R.E. Olds built an auto factory there. Workers came, one of them Earvin Johnson, Sr., from Wesson, Mississippi. At Fisher Body, UAW Local 602, he worked from 4:48 in the afternoon to 3:18 in the morning, then pumped gas or collected trash. His sons and the other black kids on the west side played
all summer at the Main Street School courts, five on five, win to stay on the court. Every year they wore out the yellow lines. At night, big brothers pulled their cars up so the kids could play in the headlights. The best of these was Earvin Johnson, Jr. In the fifth grade, he asked his teacher’s husband, Jim Dart, to coach so he could be on a team. Jim Dart taught the fundamentals—the reverse pivot, how to box out, how to use the left hand. Earvin said it wasn’t right not to practice as hard as you played. His father couldn’t make it to games because he worked nights, but when the boy got so good in junior high, his supervisor let him duck out. “I know all about your boy,” the man said, “and you’ve got to be there.” Sometimes on summer evenings Earvin and four of his buddies would stand at the corner of Middle and William and harmonize
on Motown songs, three blocks west of the big plant where the Oldsmobile Cutlass was put together, one of the most popular cars in the country in the 1970s. But mostly they played ball. Earvin dreamed of playing at Sexton, his home school. But he was bused down to Lansing Everett. It had been a white school with no basketball history. But Earvin took Everett to the state championship, and 5,000 Lansing school kids signed petitions begging him to choose Michigan State over rival Michigan. By 1979, in that final game in Salt Lake City, the two boys, both famous by then, made a matched set, each of them straining for the ball, twisting, running, staring down court for the open man. Both were smart and unselfish on the court. Both had the good luck to grow to 6'9". Otherwise, by their own admission, they were not the players most blessed with physical gifts. Their blessings were the parents, the towns, the schools, the neighborhoods that put up the rims and painted the lines on the pavement, the coaches who came in early. History and human infrastructures lifted and held those boys up.
Now, if you stand on the corner where Magic Johnson sang on summer nights, you look down the street to Lansing’s biggest vacant lot. The Cutlass plant is gone, the site paved over. Near Sexton High, the big, beat-up sign at UAW Local 602 says only: “Pension and Insurance. Substance Abuse. Community Services.” On the business strips you see all the franchise places, but about the only homegrown businesses are barbershops and hair salons. It looks
like the only thing growing in Michigan is hair. French Lick has had a little more luck—not much. The Kimball piano plant is long gone. They fixed up the big French Lick Springs Hotel and put in a new casino, and up on the steep hill there are still fine, frowning bungalows with tidy lawns and Easter decorations. But down in the town, the signs on stores say “We Have Moved” and “This Location For Sale,” one store after another. Even “Gotta Have It Sports” is for rent. James Tobin teaches narrative nonfiction in the Department of Media, Journalism, and Film at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. His latest book, The Man He Became: How FDR Defied Polio to Win the Presidency, was released in 2013. This story originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal in April 2009. Reprinted by permission of The Wall Street Journal, copyright © 2014 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. License number 3301490076607.
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Larry Bird we in Boston never saw.
The Bird of Hulman Center
Oh, no, we’re not complaining. We were deliriously happy with the three MVPS, the annual berths on the All-League first team, and, of course, the 1981, 1984, and 1986 NBA championships. He’s the greatest forward who has ever laced up a pair of sneakers, and we were thrilled to have him in a Celtics uniform for 13 seasons. We wouldn’t have traded him for all the Magics and Michaels in the universe. But, gosh darn it, you denizens of Hulman Center saw a Larry Bird we never saw, and we can hope you appreciate your good fortune. The Larry Bird we knew was a pretty good shooter. But you folks got to see a different one. “I was a lot better shooter in college,” he explains. In terms of shooting, Larry Bird’s career can be divided into two parts, Pre-Softball and Post-Softball. He was playing softball in the spring of 1979. The glorious senior season that had culminated in a trip to the national championship game in Salt Lake City was in the books. He had already been drafted a year earlier by the Boston Celtics, and the issue now was selecting an agent and negotiating a contract with the Celtics, which, admittedly, was not going to be an easy task. Anyway, here he was, playing a friendly game of softball. He was attempting to snare a line drive in left field, and he got his right hand into the glove a bit too soon. The ball hit his right index finger, and the result wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t a break, but a smash. The finger was a mess. Not to point fingers or anything, but the repair job was botched. Larry Bird was left with a misshapen, unbendable, right index finger—on his shooting hand. And he never said a public word. He played his entire Celtics career while somehow or other making an adjustment in his shooting that might very well have stymied 99 percent of the population. He then dislocated his right pinky in the 1986 playoffs, leaving that finger an equal mess. From that point on he was operating with a shooting hand in which 40 percent of his fingers were impaired. That didn’t keep him from shooting .527 from the floor during the 1987-88 season, or from winning a celebrated duel with Atlanta’s Dominique Wilkins by shooting 9 for 10 from the floor in the fourth quarter of Game 7 in the Eastern Conference Finals.
ISU archives
by Bob Ryan
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Your Larry could throw tricky bounce passes as he learned how to utilize that Hulman Center tartan surface. Your Larry loved to orchestrate the crowd during routs. And your Larry could flatout shoot.
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LArry bird tribute issue • march 2014
The public never knew. And you can be sure all this is news to all those competitors who were frustrated by, or who looked up to, the man they called “Larry Legend.” It turns out he was more of a mythical figure than they ever knew. “It was just a different feel,” Bird says of the re-configured shot. “The ball came off the side instead of the fingertip.” Oh, if it were only that simple. What happened to Larry Bird was a definite career-wrecker for the next 10 guys. Figuring out how to overcome something as potentially devastating as that is how one gets to become a Legend. But back when the people of Terre Haute knew him, he was just plain Larry, a totally unpretentious kid from French Lick who would transform himself from just another Indiana high school hot shot into someone who would explode into the national sports consciousness. When he arrived, no one knew how it would all turn out—Larry most of all—but he did know one thing after spending a little time on the ISU campus: He had definitely come to the right place. His college days had begun, as most fans knew, in Bloomington at Indiana University. From the first minute of the first day, he knew he had made a mistake. He had gone to IU against his better judgment. It was almost as if he had no choice, no say, in the matter. When coach Bob Knight calls you, a loyal Hoosier, you’d damn well better come. So he went. He barely lasted a month. He just didn’t fit; it was as simple as that. It had nothing to do with coach Knight, whose attitude toward his new recruit in that brief period of time could best be described as benign neglect. His experiences in pick-up basketball were not all that pleasant, but that wasn’t the worst part. IU was just too big, too bustling, and too filled with people with whom he had nothing in common. The next thing you know he was sticking out his thumb on Route 37— there should be a commemorative road marker —and heading home. Working for the French Lick Rec Department is part of the Bird lore, but the fact is he always knew he’d be going back to school somewhere. ISU assistant coach Bill Hodges was an ardent recruiter, and Larry decided ISU was the place for him. Good call. There was an adjustment period. Larry was not the most world-wise individual in those days. “The first year was tough,” he recalls. “It
was a situation where I didn’t know anybody. I felt uncomfortable at first, but I still knew it was the right place.” He’s talking about the social circumstances. The basketball part required no significant adjustment whatsoever. “I didn’t know what to expect,” he says. “I didn’t know much about college basketball when I arrived. But I do remember thinking early on ‘I can do what I want out here.’ I think I wound up averaging about 40 during the last 10 games.” Early on in Bird’s Sycamore career, Sports Illustrated asked him to be its cover boy for the November 28, 1977 issue. “I didn’t want to do it, of course,” he says. It was, in fact, the last thing the publicity-shy Bird wanted. But you can imagine what it meant to the school, which had never before received this kind of national exposure. Larry Bird sat for the photo. “When that magazine came out,” Bird recalls, “my whole world changed.” Yes, indeed. That cover propelled ISU into the national spotlight— and in the forefront was a kid from French Lick who was completely and thoroughly unprepared to become a celebrity. All he wanted to do was play basketball. All the rest was a royal pain in the you-know-what. His junior year was a bit on the bumpy side. “We started off great, something like 14 and 0, but then there were problems within the team,” he explains. “It was tough going out there in the end.” It’s true that the ISU season did fizzle out, but that didn’t matter to a national constituency that had taken notice of the team’s best player, this Bird kid, this 6'9" forward who not only could shoot from anywhere and rebound with anyone but who made passes no forward had a right to make. By the end of the 1977-78 season, the word was out that there was a very special player at Indiana State. Nowadays, the NBA draft is a big television spectacle and the scene in New York is festive, but in those days the draft was basically a glorified conference call. Larry Bird got word he had been drafted by the Boston Celtics while on the golf course. The Celtics actually made a pitch to have him sign immediately, but he wasn’t interested. He was going to have a senior year, and he was going to graduate. ISU would play and ISU would win and Larry Bird would have 30-plus points and 15-plus rebounds and a half-dozen dazzling assists and,
5Clockwise from above: a rare dunk; the iconic nolook pass that became his signature; accepting the 1979 runner-up trophy; signing with the Celtics in April 1979; back in Hulman Center for an exhibition game with the Celtics against the Pacers
Larry was magnificent in the semifinal game against DePaul, but when game time arrived on Monday evening things had changed. “I went out with friends to eat after the game on Saturday,” he recalls. “But by 10:00 on Saturday night, it felt as if all the energy had gone out of my body.” One thing he’ll always say is that the better team won. He is often asked how many times ISU might have beaten Michigan State if they had played 10 times. “That’s a tough one,” he says. “They were the best team we faced. Long and athletic. They defended me better than anyone.” It was the most-watched college game of all time. It was also the beginning of a classic individual rivalry that would play out over the next 13 years. And so the ISU season ended at 33-1. A strong argument can be made that no player was ever more singularly responsible for leading a team to the national championship game than the 1978-79 Larry Bird. “It was a special group of guys, and we accomplished amazing things,” he declares. “The good thing is that when we lost, we lost to a better team.” Throughout his Celtics career, Larry Bird always spoke fondly of both ISU and Terre Haute. Make no mistake: being honored by Indiana State is as important to him as any honor he could ever receive. “A statue is a little embarrassing,” he says, “but it is what it is. I love that school. I went there for two reasons: to play basketball and get an education. I did both. I fulfilled both dreams.” He went on to establish himself as an all-time great. But you folks, and you folks alone, can say you knew him when he could really shoot. Bob Ryan is a retired columnist for the Boston Globe’s sports section. He has been writing for the Globe since 1968, covering all of Boston’s sports teams. Ryan is a regular panelist on ESPN’s Sunday morning roundtable, “The Sports Reporters.”
March 2014 • LArry bird tribute issue
all photos: isu archives
naturally, everyone would want to talk to him. Number one, he had nothing to say. Number two, he could feel the locker room vibe. “I could see the resentment on my teammates’ faces,” he explains. “Nobody was talking to them. And they deserved their day in the sun, too.” Larry decided he didn’t want to talk to anyone. The media members were instructed to go converse with Carl Nicks, Brad Miley, Alex Gilbert, Steve Reed, Leroy Staley, Bob Heaton ... anybody but Larry. It was a perfect out for the team’s star, no? “Yes,” he admits now. But it wasn’t just that. Those guys did deserve some publicity. “They were thinking, ‘Hey, we’re part of this team. We throw him the ball.’ But, yes, I was the last guy on Earth looking for attention.” Those pesky reporters aside, Larry relished that season. And though he didn’t like the media process, that didn’t mean he was above manipulating the public through the media, a skill he would perfect as a Celtic. He talks about a time he thought the crowd was getting a little too laid back. “So I sent out the word. ‘That’s fine. Stay home. We don’t care if you come see us or not.’ Well, when we hit the floor for the next game, the crowd noise was unbelievable. I had chills.” Your Larry could throw tricky bounce passes as he learned how to utilize that Hulman Center tartan surface. Your Larry loved to orchestrate the crowd during routs. And your Larry could flat-out shoot. What Hulman Center follower was surprised when Larry shot 16-for-19 in the national semifinals against Mark Aguirre and DePaul? Things came to a head that final weekend in Salt Lake City. It was going to be Larry Bird vs. Magic Johnson for the national title. It would be Michigan State, very much a part of the athletic aristocracy, vs. Indiana State, a total outlier and perfect representative of the Little Guy. The wait for the game was interminable. Anyone who was there will tell you that that Sunday and that Monday each seemed 72 hours long.
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17' Larry
Bird Statue Indiana State University
the making of a legend
How artist Bill Wolfe created a campus icon
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by jennifer sicking G ’11
12' Magic
Johnson Statue Michigan State University
10'
Rocky Balboa Statue Philadelphia Museum of Art
he slight 8-year-old boy momentarily forgot the cold that winter Indiana day. There in the dump among the flotsam and jetsam of small-town life lay a treasure. He grabbed the old, rusty iron rim and dragged it home that frigid afternoon. He pulled a ladder to the old walnut tree in his backyard and, his hands stiff with cold, he carried the rim up the ladder and hammered in nails to secure it to the tree. When he climbed down, the rim sagged a bit in the front, but no matter, he could play basketball.
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RACHEL KEYeS
pair of carefully sculpted legs pointed up to the ceiling as if the person to whom they belonged had dove forward and disappeared into the floor below. Across the room, the sculpture’s upper-half—torso and famous face—looked as if it was springing out of the floor. The subject’s mouth was slightly open in concentration, his floppy ’70s hair askew. Larry Bird was vanishing and reappearing in Bill Wolfe’s studio. “I really wanted to show Larry as everyone else thinks of him, shooting the long-range jump shot and have him on his tiptoes just about to release the ball,” said Wolfe, the sculptor commissioned by the Indiana State University Foundation to create Bird in bronze. At 15-feet tall, Bird is the largest statue that Wolfe has created—it rises more than 17 feet if you include its
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LArry bird tribute issue • 2014
base. Inside a car dealership’s showroom-turned-art studio, Wolfe carved Bird out of sections of Styrofoam before crafting his features, down to a wispy moustache and Sycamores No. 33 jersey, out of clay. After four months of crafting the 1979 Bird, Wolfe glued the two sections together on tables stretching across the studio. Then with the help of 10 friends, he carried Bird to the former garage, where, for the first time, the statue stood upright under the 20-foot ceilings. After securing the statue with cables, Wolfe climbed down off of his ladder and gazed up at his creation. “I was a little bit in awe,” he said remembering that moment before a mold was cast from the Styrofoam and wax statue and molten bronze poured to create the athlete in action. “I was like, ‘Whoa, this is huge.’” But it had to be large. It had to be taller than the 12-foot statue Michigan State University installed of Magic Johnson, Bird’s nemesis-turned-friend. Johnson led the Michigan State team that handed the Sycamores their only loss of the 1978-79 season— and it came in the NCAA championship game. In the pros, the two men battled each other for NBA championships, Bird playing for the Boston Celtics, Johnson for the Los Angeles Lakers. Wolfe and Larry Legend Foundation members knew Bird’s statue had to be larger. “We just thought that it adds a little kick to the whole process. We want to honor Larry and that would be a good thing for Larry to have,” Wolfe said. “He’ll be able to say to Magic, ‘My statue is bigger.’”
I
n the spitting snow, though his hands raw with cold, the boy attempted to dribble the basketball. The ball fell with a thud and returned with only a small bounce—a problem known to many playing ball outside in the Midwest. The boy took one dribble and then launched the ball at the drooping rim. Again and again, he took a shot: now from close up, then from far away, this time as a layup. As darkness spread through the sky, it settled into the walnut tree’s branches. But such was the boy’s love of the game that he continued aiming the ball into the night until the rusty hoop disappeared into the darkness.
5 Portrait of the artist: It took Wolfe four months to create the mold for the 17-foot statue.
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The Terre Haute community rallied around Larry Bird and the Sycamores in 1979, and they did it again on a November afternoon in 2013 with thousands of people filling the streets around Hulman Center. They wanted to celebrate again the man who brought such joy and pride to the university and the community. During the dedication ceremony, ISU President Daniel Bradley informed Bird, “Your name has become synonymous with Indiana State University, and we are proud that the world knows that Larry Bird is a Sycamore.” But he is more than that. “He is Larry Legend. He is probably one of the best basketball players who has played the game,” Wolfe said. Ron Carpenter, president of the Indiana State University Foundation, said the organization was glad to link an anonymous donor’s philanthropy with Wolfe’s connection to the university and passion for his artwork. “This synergy between these two Larry Bird fans has produced a significant statue that generations of Sycamores and the Terre Haute community can be proud of,” he said. While Bird said that the statue and honor means much to him, he wishes for something greater from it for others. “I hope that future generations and young kids drive by here and maybe it will inspire one or two of them—hopefully, it will inspire a lot more—but, if we can just inspire one kid or two kids to reach their dreams like I did, I’ll be very happy,” Bird said. Wolfe knows about working to reach dreams. He’s the boy who sat on his grandmother’s knee and dreamed of a life creating art. He also remains in his heart that 8-year-old boy who dragged the rusty rim home from the town dump then shot basketballs deep into the cold Indiana night. A part of him remains the growing Indiana boy who dreamed of playing professional basketball. “I feel like every young boy in Indiana wants to be a professional basketball player or just loves the game,” Wolfe said. “It is something you dream about. In the end, I didn’t become a professional basketball player, but I did make a statue for one of the top players of all time.”
March 2014 • LArry bird tribute issue
Wolfe: tony campbell; back cover photo: SCP AUCTIONS, INC
t 4-years-old, Wolfe looked up at his grandmother and told her that he wanted to be an artist. “Lo and behold, here I am,” he said. He had spent hours sitting on her knees, rocking together with her in her chair, coloring and drawing pictures. His grandmother would hand him her latest issue of LIFE magazine and he, clutching a pencil, would draw what he saw on the pages. “She was training me with that hand-eye coordination,” Wolfe said. In his studio, that rocking chair now provides a seat for guests who stop by to see the artist at work. From paintings to sculptures, Wolfe achieved his childhood dream. After graduating from high school, he enrolled at Indiana State University to study art, and watched his friends earn paychecks from working in the coal mines. They were driving Corvettes. He commuted to classes from his home in Clinton, Indiana, and spent his spare time writing papers and studying. Then one week his old car had two flat tires. “I got disgusted about everything. I just up and quit [school], which I have been kicking myself about ever since,” he said. “But I’ve done OK.” Indeed. From murals gracing walls of buildings to statues serving in Boston, Roanoke, Va., and Dayton, Ohio, as well as around Indiana, Wolfe has made a name for himself in the art world. His statue of Terre Haute poet Max Ehrmann sits at the intersection of Seventh Street and Wabash Avenue. “Public art is an educational tool. It enters the fabric of what the community is all about,” Wolfe said. “I don’t take it for granted. There is a lot of intense pressure that I do feel to do a good job.” Wolfe has remained a part of Indiana State. He drafted the concept and created the name of ISU’s mascot Sycamore Sam. And he joined the community in cheering for Bird and the 1979 Sycamores. “I remember the game. I remember all the excitement,” Wolfe said. “This was Indiana State going to the final game of the NCAA championship. I mean who could have believed it? ISU would be going to the final game.”
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coming fall 2014:
Indiana State University Office of Communications & Marketing Terre Haute, IN 47809 change Service Requested
The Indiana State University magazine is getting a makeover and returning to a print edition. Details can be found at
www.statemagazine.com
I never played when I didn’t want to be the best out there every night. Not once. —Larry Bird
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